Tag : Ruts

THE RUTS DC have announced a major tour for the New Year, celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the classic album The Crack.

The tour takes in 17 dates across the UK and Ireland during February and March, including a London show at Shepherds Bush Empire. Support at all shows comes from THE PROFESSIONALS.

Coming together in the West London district of Southall in 1977, The Ruts sound fundamentally fused rabble-rousing punk with the dub-reggae influence of their surroundings. Their classic debut single ‘In A Rut’ was released at the start of 1979 on People Unite Records, the label owned by friends and neighbours MISTY IN ROOTS.

Their pioneering debut album The Crack was released on Virgin that autumn and is rightly regarded as one of the most important releases of the immediate post-punk – and indeed punk – era. Driven by a string of hit singles in ‘Babylon’ Burning’, ‘Something That I said’ and the reggae-fuelled ‘Jah War’, The Ruts were poised for major international success, only for their plans to be disrupted by the sudden death of charismatic frontman Malcolm Owen from a heroin overdose in July 1980.

Having played a benefit for guitarist Paul Fox, who was suffering from terminal cancer, in 2007, with Henry Rollins taking Owen’s role, surviving members Segs Jennings and Dave Ruffy decided to continue with The Ruts DC, recruiting guitarist Leigh Hegarty for the critically acclaimed album Music Must Destroy in 2016.

Celebrating the released of The Crack in 2019, the band will be performing the album live onstage in its entirety for the very first time, and in doing so will be paying tribute to Owen and Fox.

“It’s always been important to us to be a current and forward-thinking band, releasing and playing new material whilst being proud of our past,” states Segs. “A milestone to many, The Crack is an important piece of work to us too. We now feel ready to celebrate where we came from.”

“Making The Crack was a real game changer for me,” continues Ruffy. “The Ruts were a band that were greater than the sum of their parts and wrote music inspired by everything we had ever heard. It’s a piece of work that I am immensely proud to have been a part of. Now forty years on we will be playing the album in its entirety, it’s quite a challenge as some of the songs have not been played since 1980! Our legacy is large, and we are and will continue working hard to make this a great show.”